Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Next Stop .... Cebu, central Phillipines


I am hoping to jump on a short flight to Cebu today. That's in central Phillipines and is about a 1 hour flight from Manila (northern Phillipines). I'm just killing time now in an internet cafe in Manila. I need to wait for my American landlord to show up so I can pay my rent. Then I'll fight traffic to get to the airport.

My reason for going to Cebu is 2-fold. First of all I want to attend an English teaching course. Called TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) which roughly means you take a 1-month course and get a certificate to teach English to foreigners. The TEFL/TESOL certificate seems to be recognized all over the world and theoretically means I could get english teaching jobs anywhere. With my charm (what?), good looks (cough!), and English pedigree (that's true), I hope I can compete in the popular english teaching industry. It may become my main career or it may just be a useful backup career if I can't find computer graphics (CG) work. CG pays much better but the hours can be brutal. Teaching is a slackers wet-dream job. I'm not a slacker but the hours look tempting. Teachers usually work about 16-20 hours per week.

The second reason is I have a lot of time on my hands and I'm getting really bored. I'm not doing anything useful and haven't met many "real" people. That means people who aren't try to sell me something I don't want. I hope that will change when I go to Cebu and join a group of "teachers-in-training". This could mean my day is full of learning and my evening with social events. Cebu and the surrounding area is also supposed to be prettier than Manila and closer to nature. We'll see. Stay tuned.